Penance and reflection: Lenten traditions prepare Catholics for Easter season

Feb. 10, 2013

Start of Lent: In this March 9, 2011, file photo, churchgoers at an Ash Wednesday Mass receive communion at Santa Barbara Catholic Church in Dededo. Ash Wednesday is a tradition of the Catholic Church that marks the beginning of Lent. Pacific Sunday News

Written by

Lacee A.C. Martinez
Pacific Sunday News

This week, Catholics will head to church to begin the period of preparation and reflection for Easter. Lent begins with Mass on Ash Wednesday -- just three days from now.

"The ashes placed on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday help us remember that our life on Earth is short and that one day we will all die and return to the earth, symbolized in ashes," says Father Eric Forbes of the St. Fidelis Friary. "Therefore, it is a call to turn back to God and the thing that matters the most, our eternal salvation."

Lent, Forbes says, is a period of 40 days observed by many Christian churches in order to spiritually ...